Listing all of the references in the Scott Pilgrim series/game and movie are starting to eat up their pages, so let's list them all here! Although considering the sheer number of references, it's gonna be one hell of a chore to keep track of them.

open/close all folders

Scott Pilgrim — Graphic Novels

Volume 1, at the Rockit, 2nd panel features the drum set of The Archies.

Gideon the Cat's name is a blatant shout out to Gideon the cat from Pinocchio.

A geeky loser who thinks he's cool fights through a slew of ranked villains in a world where money bursts out of people when they die, and someone names a cat after their ex as a way of coping... wait, is this Scott Pilgrim or No More Heroes?

There are actually several Akira references relating Todd to Tetsuo. In the Honest Ed's sequence he shouts "It's my brain!!! What have you done!?!" Ramona also recalls Todd's "origin" in which he was taken to a lab for testing, and is shown returning with bandages wrapped around his head.

Acccording to O'Malley, Wallace's super-sad eyes in the "dipping sauce bitch" panel is a shout-out to Clone High.

In volume four when Roxanne and Scott first meet, Roxanne teleports the way of every Japanese depiction of ninjas, ever, which is having her fingers locked in a certain way like the usual Ninjutsu abilities.

Roxy's defeat involves her splitting apart much like Mecha Frieza, and then a much of small animals pop out like a Prison Egg capsule from the Sonic the Hedgehog games.

In Volume 6, Ramona and Scott use the X Slash move from Chrono Trigger against Gideon.

When Envy walks into Sarah's party in volume 6, there is a painting on the wall depicting a certain pirate ship.

There are Utena and Porco Rosso posters on Envy's college dorm room walls. And Chapter 37 is titled 'Not the End of the World', possibly another Utena reference.

Near the beginning of Volume 6, Scott can be seen playing a game similar to Monster Hunter on a PSP Go.

Once again in volume 6, the shirts that are being given away in Chaos Theater Toronto are suspiciously similar to an inverted Triforce from The Legend of Zelda, and the pyramid-shaped stage might be a reference to the one used by Daft Punk, and although it's hard to see, one of the background characters is wearing a Team Fortress 2 shirt when Scott gets stabbed by Gideon. Also, Chapter 34 is titled "A Link to the Past".

The stage could also be the pyramid at the center of the dark world in A Link To The Past that the final battle takes place on/in.

Not to mention the People Jars resemblance to the Castle Where Eternity Dwells...

And let's not forget in Volume 4, when Scott pulls a sword out of himself, much like in Revolutionary Girl Utena with the sword of Dios.

There's also the fact that neither Scott or Ramona are as pure or good as they believed themselves to be, or as we were led to believe, just like with Utena and Anthy when their flaws became more apparent.

Like Anthy, Ramona is seen as a prize to be won and Scott, like Utena, must frequently defeat unwanted opponents in order to keep her. Like the Student Council, the League of Evil Exes all have various reasons for wanting Ramona back, some still like her and others absolutely hate her, all the while relating to Scott that's she not so innocent. Scott, like Utena, is too naive to understand what they are trying to tell her.

On page 34 of volume 2, Scott and Kim's sex in the car is identical to a scene in Say Anything.

On page 117 of volume 2, the name of Lucas Lee's movie, You Just Don't Exist, is also the name of a Plumtree song.

Two chapters in Volume 5 are named "The Glow" and "The Glow, Pt. 2" in reference, respectively, to the song and album by The Microphones.

The Gilded Palace of Flying Burritos is named after the album The Gilded Palace of Sin by the Flying Burrito Brothers.

In the final battle when Scott enters Ramona's mind, it is vary reminiscent of the scene in Final Fantasy VII where Cloud enters the life stream to finish off Sephiroth. Compare this to this.

In Volume 1, Scott references Metroid: "I wish I could turn into a morphing ball and roll to the bathroom".

In Volume 6, there is an arcade machine called the "Murder Simulator". This could be referencing Doom as this is what it was accused of being by haters. Then again, it could just be a joke about the FPS genre...

There's also a musical Shout Out early in the film during a dream sequence. A choir can be heard singing the menu/Fairy Fountain theme from The Legend of Zelda.

That snippet starts playing during the unfilling the PEE BAR scene in the bathroom, which creates a sort of Fridge Brilliance if you equate the Great Fairy of the fountain as an Epiphany Toilet figure, since that scene does lead into a new big development in the next after the dream sequence.

On the Zelda theme, there was what resembled an upside-down triforce symbol painted on Chaos Theatre's door in the last scene. This is apparently the video game equivalent of an upside-down cross. The three triangles were also G's, in reference to the initials of Gideon Gordon Graves, and if you'll count the letters, you'll see another Satanic reference, 666.

Also from Zelda, the beginning of the movie, the scene in the kitchen, featured a lot of music from A Link to the Past. Close inspection of Young Neil's DS reveals a Gameboy Advance cartridge sticking out the bottom, and that game was ported to the GBA.

Many other video game sound effects are used too, notably the ring sound from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Quite a few pop up during Roxy's fight.

When Roxy gives Scott a look just before he "gets it", the sound effect is a single star from the intro to Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

When Scott "gets it", the sound that plays is from Sonic the Hedgehog, when your score total has finished rolling over at the end of an Act.

The bonus stage warp sound from Sonic is used when Ramona brandishes the huge hammer.

As horrible as it is, Scott's SARS shirt. Anyone from Toronto can appreciate it.

Scott also wears shirts featuring the Bass symbol from Rock Band, the logo of the CBC, The Smashing Pumpkins"Zero" shirt◊ and SP shirt, and the name of the band, Plumtree, who wrote the original "Scott Pilgrim" song that inspired the graphic novels. Young Neil wears a Sloan shirt, a shout out to band member Chris Murphy, who tutored the cast in playing instruments.

Todd Ingram says "That's bullroar" when the Vegan Police call him on his gelato and chicken-related crimes.

Sound effects and sprites from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game were added to the film in post-production (most noticeably in Ramona's comic book-style flashbacks) because the director was impressed with the game developer's work.

The monster Scott summons with his bass is rather similar to the one from Forbidden Planet. Given that the monster from FP was an extension of a character's Id and Scott's creature is probably driven by his jealousy upon seeing Ramona with Gideon (hence his and the monster's green eyes) its not too surprising.

Envy's hairstyle while singing in the club looks exactly like Misa's from Death Note. She even wears a similar outfit to one of Misa's.

In the scene just after the opening credits Young Neil can be seen reading the webcomic Achewood on his computer.

Because the movie's script was written before volume 6 was published, The Power of Understanding doesn't make an appearance. To make up for it though, we get Knives looking almost exactly like a certain ActionNinja from the same series.

Gideon uses Kuji-in (used in various points in Japanese culture, and most well known these days from Naruto) to summon his 8-Bit Katana.

Some form of Street Fighter is present. Well, actually it's more like every fighting game in existence with all those 'Scott vs. (insertenemyhere)' type screens. Fun fact: That KO! sound you hear? It's from Street Fighter Alpha 3.

The KO! sound effect is also used in the game.

Except its a real headscratcher that the iconic, "Here come's a new challenger!" or variant isn't announced."

The color combination of Red, Blue, and Green could be a reference to many things, also including the RGB color system used in coding pixel colors and in mixing light.

The sound effect when Ramona kisses Patel in the flashback is the Mac startup sound.

The green-eyed Yeti summoned by Scott's Bass in the penultimate Evil Ex battle (As well as Scott's bass itself) was covered in light bluelightning.

Did anybody else jump up from their seats in the theater and yell "STAR POWER!" when this happened?........oh, just me.

According to Edgar Wright, the Chaos Theatre pyramid from which Gideon sits on top with Ramona, is partially inspired by the original arcade Donkey Kong game. It even shares a red and black aesthetic.

Also according to Edgar Wright, he and composer Nigel Godrich are huge Doctor Who fans, and some cues from the film's score are in reference to The Sea Devils serial, a stretch of episodes known for an improvisational score using synthesizers.

Scott throws the Clash At Demonhead CD on top of the Beck section of the CD store. Beck wrote Sex Bob-Omb's songs.

The original version of the 1-UP/second-run sequence, as seen in the Deleted Scenes on the DVD, featured a number of Super Mario World sound effects.

This is probably a coincidence, but during the swordfight between Scott and Gideon, their styles of fighting reminded me muchly of the Ryan Vs Dorkman series of videos.

The day after Scott talks to Ramona at the party, he plays what seems to be a variation of the Game Over theme of Super Mario World on his guitar

When Scott enters the Chaos Theatre for the second time, Comeau can be heard in the background making a rather paradoxical statement: "Their first album was better than their first album." While it comes across as a parody of hipsters and music snobbery in general, it's also a subtle reference to the band Metric, which wrote the song "Black Sheep" that appears earlier in the movie. Due to trouble with their record label, the first album they recorded - "Grow Up and Blow Away" - was released six years late, during which time they started from scratch and released two other albums. Thus, two albums that were technically first (first released and first recorded).

The part where Scott calls Knives from a phone booth and starts glancing around resembles a similar scene in the 2002 movie Phone Booth.

Scott's (really Wallace's) home phone rings in the exact same manner as Tim and Daisy's in Spaced.

The platform Gideon is sitting on in the final fight looks like a scene in The Killing Joke.

Two of Scott's T-shirts—the SP and ZERO shirts—are shout outs to Smashing Pumpkins

Also, during the band's first battle/the first ex battle, Scott is wearing a Plumtree shirt. Scott is named after the Plumtree song Scott Pilgrim.

Probably just coincidence, but one of Crash and the Boys' members is a ten-year-old Asian girl, in a band with adult men, much like Noodle of Gorillaz.

Additionally, his Super attack is identical to K9999's SDM from King of Fighters, down to even the initial pose and animation. Which makes sense since K9999 was a Tetsuo ripoff himself.

There's also a Spider-Man (Well, Venom, but Spider-Man as the series) reference when Todd uses his super attack. His creepy transformation as he shoots the vegetables from his arm morphs his body into a near exact copy of Venom's outfit.

At the Halloween party, there's someone in the background dressed up as Bang from the Nes Game Clash At Demonhead. In addition, one of the enemies is wearing the skull of Tom Guycott, a boss from that game.

The sequence on the bus is reminiscent of the first boss battle in The Punisher (Capcom), that was fought on a bus.

It also features detachable arms, a mono-eye, head-mounted beam weapon and a head that becomes an escape vessel, not unlike Mobile Suit Gundam's Zeong.

When you fight the robot; the city in the background is on fire, you're fighting it on a rooftop, and it sometimes retreats to the background, just like the third boss in the first stage of Contra Hard Corps.

Right before the battle with Todd Ingram, you engage in a bass battle with note highways similar to Rock Band and Guitar Hero. After a while, Scott decides to cut the crap and hits Todd with his guitar. The actual boss battle then commences.

The graphic for the "Energy Tank" food item you can buy in the last level looks almost exactly like energy tanks from earlier Mega Man games. The in-game description even states "It has a letter E on it".

Ken Katayanagi, of the Katayanagi twins, had his name changed to Kevin for the game. This is a reference to Street Fighter 2010, where the character Kevin had his name changed to Ken for the American release.

In fact, the music is FULL of Shout Outs in the names of the music. Lucas Lee's boss theme is called Skate Or Live, the twins' boss theme is called Twin Dragons, the final stage music is called Techno Man. In addition, some of the songs feature concepts from the comics. The music for stage six, for example, is called Leave The Past Behind which is exactly what Scott wants to do, but exactly what he shouldn't do.

The enemy bats do two shout outs in one: they usually appear near bottomless pits - just like the early Castlevania games - and are called G.D.Bats - Goddamned Bats!

At one point, Knives' mother will be summoned and call your enemies a grass mud horse.

One of the logos in the background of the Mini-Mart looks like the Angry Sun.

There's also a red bull

There are multiple throwbacks and Mythology Gags to the original graphic novel that are too easy to miss, for example...

On the window of the Video store, there are two posters depicting the covers of the second, third, fifth, and first volume of the graphic novels.

In level 4, why are there constantly girls attacking you on roller skates? They're the Winifred Haileys that Roxanne conjured from the short comic that came after the second book.

Why does Mobile teach you a special attack in his secret basement? Because there was a Red Herring in the third volume about him teaching Scott how to use psychic powers against Todd.

Speaking of which, why is Wallace, Jimmy, Other Scott, and Joseph doing outside of his basement? The only correlation between them and Mobile is that they're all gay secondary characters.

You see the symbol on the Katayanagis' organ? It's the same symbol used on their keyboard/synthesizer in the movie.

In stage 3, while you make your way through the club, you can see at least two "The Clash at Demonhead"-poster that are recreations of the ones used in the movie. Notably it shows Envy with blond hair rather then red hair.

One of the trophies/achievements you can get ("Twin Dragons") is unlocked by defeating both of the Katayanagis simultaneously. In the comic, Scott gets an achievment for doing the same thing.

In order to unlock the secret shop, the player has to pay $504.25 for Scott's late fees at No Account Video, an obvious reference to the comic. note Granted, the actual fee is $504.28, but it's most likely to prevent annoyance at constantly having a cash total not ending in 5 or 0 (as the lowest coin is 5 cents)

Posters in Julie's party reflects the albums of Metric and the island that Anamanaguchi's Dawn Metropolis was placed in.

Several of the games cheats (At least on the 360 version) Are shout-outs to famous codes from other games.

The blood code is ripped from the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat. ABAXABB being as close as you can get to ABACABB on the 360 pad.

The "Change coins into animals" code is not only a shoutout to Sonic games, but the code Up, Up, Down, Down, Up, Up, Up, Up is the same as Sonic The Hedgehog 3's insanely hard level select and sound test code.

The Konami Code makes an appearance (With LT and RT needing to be held) as a code that spawns money when you commit suicide.

The select the same character code (Down, RB, Up, LB, B) is identical to the SNES version of the Vanilla Street Fighter II Code that enables Mirror Matches.

Ramona's secret technique (the one you have to purchase) is a front-flip-landing-in-straddle-split move, used by Kim Kap Hwan and Chun-Li.

A few of Super Gideon's attacks are taken from Gill's standing normals.

Mr. Chau is fought on an open field in the middle of a storm; it looks a lot like the place where you fight Shin Akuma in Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold. There is some sort of castle in the background, though.

The elves on Nega-Scot's level that can be beaten for coins resemble those on Golden Axe

In an interview that was on an older version of SP's site (now sadly gone), O'Malley stated that Scott had bought it not because of an affection for the band, but simply because it had his initials on it.

Did we mention how much Ramona looks like Tank Girl sometimes? Especially when she's shown in roller skates and goggles wielding a baseball bat?

Lucas Lee is at least partially inspired by Jason Lee (a pro-skateboarder turned actor with the last name Lee)

Lynette Guycott is probably a reference to Tom Guycot from the game. Her arm is a reference to Bionic Commando.

Super Dodge Ball, a game which was related to the River City Ransom universe, also has you play against the evil version of your team after you've beaten the final team without losing a match. They have a similar palette to Nega-Scott.

In the game, he also pays homage to the Double Illusion boss from Double Dragon II (i.e., He's the same as Scott, but purple and with the added ability to throw fireballs).

Nega-Scott not only throw fireballs in the same stance as Ryu, as his fireballs are purple, just like Akuma and Evil Ryu from Street Fighter.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy